"Islamic State fighters drove Syrian government forces from a town in the west of the country on Sunday, as fighting looked set to intensify despite a flurry of international diplomacy and talks between regional rivals.
The jihadists' advance came even as Russian warplanes and Syrian forces supported by them stepped up assaults against insurgents in west and northwest Syria, and the United States separately sought to increase pressure on Islamic State."
---Reuters, November 1, 2015
2015 Major League Baseball World Series Game 5: Kansas City Royals Defeated the New York Mets, and Won the Series
November 1, 2015 (Sunday)
Bleak Mortality Data Regarding U.S. Middle-Aged Whites
"A large segment of white middle-aged Americans has suffered a startling rise in its death rate since 1999, according to a review of statistics published Monday that shows a sharp reversal in decades of progress toward longer lives.
The mortality rate for white men and women ages 45-54 with less than a college education increased markedly between 1999 and 2013, most likely because of problems with legal and illegal drugs, alcohol and suicide, the researchers concluded. Before then, death rates for that group dropped steadily, and at a faster pace.
An increase in the mortality rate for any large demographic group in an advanced nation has been virtually unheard of in recent decades, with the exception of Russian men after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The rising death rate was accompanied by an increase in the rate of illness, the authors wrote in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences."
"Is the American public becoming less religious? Yes, at least by some key measures of what it means to be a religious person. An extensive new survey of more than 35,000 U.S. adults finds that the percentages who say they believe in God, pray daily and regularly go to church or other religious services all have declined modestly in recent years.
But the Pew Research Center study also finds a great deal of stability in the U.S. religious landscape. The recent decrease in religious beliefs and behaviors is largely attributable to the 'nones' – the growing minority of Americans, particularly in the Millennial generation, who say they do not belong to any organized faith. Among the roughly three-quarters of U.S. adults who do claim a religion, there has been no discernible drop in most measures of religious commitment. Indeed, by some conventional measures, religiously affiliated Americans are, on average, even more devout than they were a few years ago.
The 2014 Religious Landscape Study is a follow-up to an equally extensive survey on religion in America, conducted in 2007. An initial report on the findings from the 2014 study, released in May 2015, described the changing size and demographic characteristics of the nation’s major religious groups. This report focuses on Americans’ religious beliefs and practices and assesses how they have changed in recent years.
The share of U.S. adults who say they believe in God, while still remarkably high by comparison with other advanced industrial countries, has declined modestly, from approximately 92% to 89%, since Pew Research Center conducted its first Landscape Study in 2007.1 The share of Americans who say they are 'absolutely certain' God exists has dropped more sharply, from 71% in 2007 to 63% in 2014. And the percentages who say they pray every day, attend religious services regularly and consider religion to be very important in their lives also have ticked down by small but statistically significant margins."
"A group of black players on the Missouri football team says it will stop participating in football activities until university system president Tim Wolfe resigns.
The announcement came via Twitter on Saturday night in a post by Missouri's Legion of Black Collegians. It comes after several recent racial incidents on Missouri's campus, and with Wolfe under fire for how he has handled them.
The tweet included a photograph of 32 black men, including starting running back Russell Hansbrough."
"With the backing of their head coach, football players at Missouri are threatening to stop participating in any football activities until the president of the university system is fired or resigns. In a late afternoon statement, though, the president declined to do so, saying instead that the school would start a systemwide diversity examination.
The players’ action stems from troubling racial incidents on the Columbia, Mo., campus, incidents that Missouri’s Legion of Black Collegians believes were poorly handled by Tim Wolfe. The campus-wide group announced its decision, using the hashtag #ConcernedStudent1950 and a photo of 32 black men on Twitter on Saturday night. Concerned Student 1950, the student activism group leading the protests, is named for the year Missouri first admitted African-American students.
'The athletes of color on the University of Missouri football team truly believe ‘Injustice Anywhere is a threat to Justice Everywhere,' the tweet read. 'We will no longer participate in any football related activities until President Tim Wolfe resigns or is removed due to his negligence toward marginalized students’ experiences. WE ARE UNITED!!!!!'"
"On Saturday night, the black players on the University of Missouri’s football team—a team in the national-title hunt just two years ago—went on strike against racism. The strike has the potential to cost the Southeastern Conference football program millions of dollars, because the conditions for black students on campus have become simply unendurable."
---Dave Zirin, The Nation, November 8, 2015
Controversial GOP Presidential Candidate Donald Trump Hosts Saturday Night Live
November 7-8, 2015 (Saturday)
Above: Demonstrators in New York City protesting Donald Trump's appearance on NBC's Saturday Night Live, November 7, 2015
"Investigators of the Russian plane crash in Egypt are '90 percent sure' the noise heard in the final second of a cockpit recording was an explosion caused by a bomb, a member of the investigation team told Reuters on Sunday.
The Airbus (AIR.PA) A321 crashed 23 minutes after taking off from the Sharm al-Sheikh tourist resort eight days ago, killing all 224 passengers and crew. Islamic State militants fighting Egyptian security forces in Sinai said they brought it down."
"Senior House members said Sunday that there was a mounting consensus among American intelligence officials that a bomb brought down the Russian charter jet that crashed last month in the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt, killing all 224 people on board."
---New York Times, November 8, 2015
2015 National Football League Season: Carolina Panthers 37, Green Bay Packers 29
"What better time for Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton to legitimize his MVP legitimacy than with reigning MVP Aaron Rodgers in town?
And in front of a national television audience.
Much of the statement was made in the first half of Sunday’s 37-29 victory over Green Bay as Newton made plays the way Rodgers did all last season when he had 38 touchdown passes to only five interceptions.
Newton accounted for more than 200 yards passing and three touchdowns – two passing and one rushing -- for the first time in any half of his career.
He finished with 297 yards passing and four touchdowns to give the Panthers (8-0) a two-game lead over any team in the NFC."
---ESPN, November 8, 2015
University of Missouri President Tim Wolfe Announces Resignation
"The president of the University of Missouri system and the head of its flagship campus resigned Monday with the football team and others on campus in open revolt over what they saw as indifference to racial tensions at the school.
President Tim Wolfe, a former business executive with no previous experience in academic leadership, took 'full responsibility for the frustration' students expressed and said their complaints were 'clear' and 'real.'
For months, black student groups had complained that Wolfe was unresponsive to racial slurs and other slights on the overwhelmingly white main campus of the state's four-college system. The complaints came to a head two days ago, when at least 30 black football players announced that they would not play until the president left. A graduate student went on a weeklong hunger strike.
Wolfe's announcement came at the start of what had been expected to be a lengthy closed-door meeting of the school's governing board.
'This is not the way change comes about,' he said, alluding to recent protests, in a halting statement that was simultaneously apologetic, clumsy and defiant. 'We stopped listening to each other.'
He urged students, faculty and staff to use the resignation 'to heal and start talking again to make the changes necessary.'
Hours later, the top administrator of the Columbia campus, Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin, announced that he would step down at the end of the year and shift to leading research efforts.
The school's undergraduate population is 79 percent white and 8 percent black. The state is about 83 percent white and nearly 12 percent black. The Columbia campus is about 120 miles west of Ferguson, Missouri, where Michael Brown was killed last year in a fatal shooting that helped spawn the national 'Black Lives Matter' movement rebuking police treatment of minorities.
In response to the race complaints, Wolfe had taken little public action and made few statements. As students leveled more grievances this fall, he was increasingly seen as aloof, out of touch and insensitive to their concerns. He soon became the protesters' main target."
"The leading Republican presidential candidates clashed sharply over immigration policy, military spending, and other intractable and emotional issues in a debate here Tuesday night, bringing into sharp relief the party’s fault line between rigid conservatism and mainstream practicality.
The two-hour debate spotlighted the rift between the outsider candidates and establishment governors over how strictly to enforce immigration laws and whether to provide a pathway to legal status for the country’s more than 11 million undocumented immigrants or deport them.
It also revived a long-simmering dispute over the size and role of the U.S. military, with Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.) warning of the potential adverse fiscal effects of increased defense spending and Sens. Marco Rubio (Fla.) and Ted Cruz (Tex.) advocating a more muscular American military presence in the world."
"Two white men were arrested on Wednesday on suspicion of making threats on social media against black people, two days after the University of Missouri's president and chancellor stepped down amid protests over their handling of reports of racial abuse.
Tension was still high on the main Columbia campus, where there was a greater-than-usual police presence. Several students leaving the area said they felt unsafe.
Police arrested Hunter Park in Rolla, Missouri, which is about 95 miles (150 km) south of Columbia, at about 1:50 a.m. local time (0750 GMT). Early Wednesday afternoon, police also arrested Connor Stottlemyre, 19. Both made threats on 'Yik Yak,' a social media site, officials said."
---Reuters, November 11, 2015
Kurdish Peshmerga Forces in Iraq Launch Offensive Against ISIS
November 12, 2015 (Thursday)
Above: AP photo of billowing smoke over Sinjar, Iraq, November 12, 2015
Above: AP map and graphic (posted November 12, 2015) regarding the Kurdish offensive against ISIS forces in and near ISIS-occupied Sinjar, Iraq
"Kurdish Iraqi fighters, backed by U.S.-led airstrikes, launched a major assault Thursday aiming to retake the strategic town of Sinjar, which the Islamic State group overran last year in an onslaught that caused the flight of tens of thousands of Yazidis and first prompted the United States to launch the air campaign against the militants.
Hours into the operation, the Kurdish Regional Security Council said forces were in control of a section of Highway 47, of one of IS's most active supply lines.
The advance completely isolates members of the IS group in Sinjar from militant strongholds in Syria and northern Iraq. The Kurdish fighters also said they had secured the villages of Gabarra, on the western front, and Tel Shore, Fadhelya and Qen on the eastern front."
"At least 18 people were killed and 41 wounded when a suicide bomber blew himself up at the funeral of a pro-government Shi'ite Muslim fighter in Baghdad on Friday, Iraqi police and medical sources said.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast at a mosque in the predominately Shi'ite neighborhood of Hay al-Amil.
The ultra-hardline Sunni militants of Islamic State who control large parts of Iraq's north and west frequently set off bombs in the capital and further afield.
The funeral was for a member of the Hashid Shaabi, a government umbrella group comprised mostly of Shi'ite fighters seen as a critical force in the battle against Islamic State.
Iraq has been afflicted by sectarian conflict mainly between Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims since shortly after the U.S.-led invasion that toppled dictator Saddam Hussein in 2003."
---Reuters, November 13, 2015
Kurdish Peshmerga Forces Enter Sinjar, Iraq
November 13, 2015 (Friday)
Above: AP photo of a Kurdish Peshmerga outpost near Sinjar, Iraq, Friday, November 13, 2015
Above: AP photo of a Kurdish Peshmerga outpost near Sinjar, Iraq, Friday, November 13, 2015
Above: AP photo of a devastated street in Sinjar, Iraq, Friday, November 13, 2015
Above: AP photo of a Kurdish Peshmerga fighter near a largely destroyed building in Sinjar, Iraq, Friday, November 13, 2015
Above: BBC map, graphic, and high altitude photos regarding Sinjar, Iraq, posted November 13, 2015
"Iraqi Kurdish militias battling to take back Sinjar from Islamic State militants raised a Kurdish flag in the center of town and a top official said it was liberated Friday, though U.S. and Kurdish military officials urged caution in declaring victory in a major offensive to retake the strategic community.
The Kurdish forces encountered little resistance, at least initially, suggesting that many of the IS fighters may have pulled back in anticipation of Friday's advance. It was also possible that they could be biding their time before striking back.
Kurdish militia fighters known as peshmerga launched a major offensive to retake Sinjar and succeeded in cutting a key nearby highway on Thursday. U.S.-led coalition airstrikes supported the offensive, dubbed Operation Free Sinjar.
Sinjar has been under the control of the Islamic State group for more than a year. The town was overrun by the extremists as they rampaged across Iraq in August 2014, leading to the killing, enslavement and flight of thousands of people from the minority Yazidi community."
"Kurdish peshmerga forces backed by U.S. air strikes seized the Iraqi town of Sinjar from Islamic State on Friday, a Reuters witness said, in one of the most significant counter-attacks since the militants swept through the north last year."
---Reuters, November 13, 2015
Massive Jihadist Terrorist Attack in Paris, France: Over 100 Killed in Complex Assault
November 13, 2015 (Friday)
Above: CNN website screen image, November 13, 2015
Above: LeFigaro.fr (French newspaper) screen image, November 14, 2015 (Paris, France time)
Above: New York Times website screen image, November 13, 2015
Above: Washington Post website screen image, November 13, 2015
Above: AP photo by Anne Sophie Chaisemartin of the aftermath of the terrorist attack in Paris, France on Friday, November 13, 2015
Above: BBC map and aerial photo of areas Paris that were sites where terrorists carried out attacks on Friday, October 13, 2015
Above: HuffingtonPost.com composite photo of several front pages of newspapers covering the November 13, 2015 deadly terrorist attack in Paris, France
Above: New York Timesfront page, Saturday, November 14, 2015
"The Paris area reeled Friday night from a shooting rampage, explosions and mass hostage-taking that President François Hollande called an unprecedented terrorist attack on France. His government announced sharply increased border controls and heightened police powers as it mobilized the military in a national emergency.
French television and news services quoted the police as saying that around 100 people had been killed at a concert site where hostages had been held during a two-hour standoff with the police, and that perhaps dozens of others had been killed in apparently coordinated attacks outside the country’s main sports stadium and four other popular locations in the city. But estimates on the total number of dead varied.
Witnesses on French television said the scene at the concert hall, which can seat as many as 1,500 people, was a massacre, describing how gunmen with automatic weapons shot bursts of bullets into the crowd."
---New York Times, November 13, 2015
French President Francois Hollande Declares that ISIS Carried Out the Paris Terrorist Attacks
November 14, 2015 (Saturday)
Above: New York Timeswebsite screen image, Saturday, November 14, 2015
Above: New York Timesprint edition, Sunday, November 15, 2015
Above: Francois Hollande, President of France, Leader of the Socialist Party; Nicolas Sarkozy, former President of France, 2007-2012, Leader in the French Republican Party;Marine Le Pen, Leader of the National Front, a prominent right-wing anti-immigrant French political party
Above: Wall Street JournalTwitter post showing an Army football player carrying the French flag onto a football field on Saturday, November 14, 2015
Above: Huffington Post Twitter post showing an Army football player carrying a French Flag on the field, Saturday, November 14, 2015
"What is ravaging the Middle East right now is obviously deeper than ISIS. It has become commonplace over the last year to observe that we are witnessing the collapse of the post-Ottoman order—that the 'lines in the sand' conjured in 1916 by the British and French diplomats Mark Sykes and François Georges-Picot are being blown to dust. But we haven’t reckoned with how the insurgents perceive that process. ISIS has religious, psychological, and technological faces. But in some fundamental respects it is an anti-colonial movement that takes as its reference point Islam’s pre-colonial conception of power—an Islamic state, a Sunni caliphate. Even if ISIS is crushed, this idea of 'our caliphate' is likely to persist, and return."
"Marine Le Pen, France’s answer to Donald Trump, lost no time cementing her growing power base as leader of the country’s far-right National Front just hours after the Paris attacks when she called for the 'annihilation' of Islamist radicals.
Le Pen, whose stump speeches in the depressed cities of northern France include dire warnings of the 'giant migratory wave,' told reporters in Paris on Saturday that the country had to clamp down on Islamist fundamentalism, shut down mosques and expel dangerous 'foreigners' and 'illegal migrants.'
Le Pen is the daughter of notorious xenophone Jean-Marie Le Pen, who founded the National Front in 1972. She forced him out of the party this past summer after his latest racist remarks. This weekened, she was just one of Europe's far-right figures attempting to make political capital out of the Paris attacks."
"What the politicians ultimately will decide, even they may not know. But among veterans of the terror wars in France and the United States, there is a growing focus on the capital of the putative caliphate, Raqqa, in eastern Syria."
---Christopher Dickey, The Daily Beast, November 14, 2015
"Before the French authorities had even finished counting the dead, the Islamic State was already onto the next phase of its operation: not only claiming credit for Friday’s devastating attacks in Paris but rallying its supporters and taunting the enemy that there was more to come. The terrorist group’s fans online quickly followed suit. Within hours, jihadist social media was erupting with praise, boasts, and wild speculation about what else might be in store."
"The Islamic State claimed responsibility on Saturday for the catastrophic attacks in the French capital, calling them 'the first of the storm' and mocking France as a 'capital of prostitution and obscenity,' according to statements released in multiple languages on one of the terror group’s encrypted messaging accounts."
"French President François Hollande decried the massacres across Paris as an 'act of war' by the Islamic State, amplifying signals Saturday of a major response from France and its allies after coordinated gunfire and bombings that killed at least 127 people.
Moments later, a message attributed to the Islamic State asserted responsibility for the worst attacks in France since World War II and among of the most deadly terrorist strikes on Western soil since Sept. 11, 2001.
It also further reinforced worries of expanded Islamic State reach through recruitment and propaganda, and apparent evolving tactics among its fighters that include commando-style raids against its foes in the West and elsewhere."
---Washington Post, November 14, 2015
Democratic Presidential Debate in Des Moines, Iowa
November 14, 2015 (Saturday)
Above: AP photo of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton at the Democratic presidential debate in Des Moines, Iowa on Saturday, November 14, 2015
"France launched 'massive' air strikes on the Islamic State group's de-facto capital in Syria Sunday night, destroying a jihadi training camp and a munitions dump in the city of Raqqa, where Iraqi intelligence officials say the attacks on Paris were planned.
Twelve aircraft including 10 fighter jets dropped a total of 20 bombs in the biggest air strikes since France extended its bombing campaign against the extremist group to Syria in September, a Defense Ministry statement said. The jets launched from sites in Jordan and the Persian Gulf, in coordination with U.S. forces.
Meanwhile, as police announced seven arrests and hunted for more members of the sleeper cell that carried out the Paris attacks, French officials revealed to The Associated Press that several key suspects had been stopped and released by police after the attack.
The arrest warrant for Salah Abdeslam, a 26-year-old born in Brussels, calls him very dangerous and warns people not to intervene if they see him.
Yet police already had him in their grasp early Saturday, when they stopped a car carrying three men near the Belgian border. By then, hours had passed since authorities identified Abdeslam as the renter of a Volkswagen Polo that carried hostage takers to the Paris theater where so many died.
Three French police officials and a top French security official confirmed that officers let Abdeslam go after checking his ID. They spoke on condition of anonymity, lacking authorization to publicly disclose such details.
Tantalizing clues about the extent of the plot have emerged from Baghdad, where senior Iraqi officials told the AP that France and other countries had been warned on Thursday of an imminent attack.
An Iraqi intelligence dispatch warned that Islamic State group leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi had ordered his followers to immediately launch gun and bomb attacks and take hostages inside the countries of the coalition fighting them in Iraq and Syria."
"The attackers in Friday’s terrorist assault in Paris communicated at some point beforehand with known members of the Islamic State in Syria, officials on both sides of the Atlantic say, adding evidence to the assertions that the radical group coordinated or helped carry out the attacks rather than simply inspiring them.
President François Hollande of France has characterized the attacks, which killed at least 129 people on Friday night, as 'an act of war' carried out by the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. He provided no specific information, but the Islamic State released statements on Saturday claiming responsibility for the attacks, part of increasing indications that the group is becoming more capable of extending its reach far beyond its base in Syria and Iraq."
---New York Times, November 15, 2015
France Launches Airstrikes Against ISIS Targets in Raqqa, Syria
November 15, 2015 (Sunday)
Above: HuffingtonPost.com screen image, late Sunday afternoon (CST), November 15, 2015
Above: New York Timesprint edition front page, Monday, November 16, 2015
"French warplanes pounded Islamic State positions in Syria on Sunday as police in Europe widened their investigations into coordinated attacks in Paris that killed more than 130 people.
Islamic State has claimed responsibility for Friday's suicide bombings and shootings, which have re-ignited a row over Europe's refugee crisis and drawn calls to block a huge influx of Muslim asylum-seekers."
"France bombed the Syrian city of Raqqa on Sunday night, its most aggressive strike against the Islamic State group it blames for killing 129 people in a string of terrorist attacks across Paris only two days before.
President François Hollande, who vowed to be 'unforgiving with the barbarians' of the Islamic State after the carnage in Paris, decided on the airstrikes in a meeting with his national security team on Saturday, officials said."
---New York Times, November 15, 2015
France Continues to React to the Jihadist Terrorist Attacks of November 13th
November 16, 2015 (Monday)
Above: AP photo of Paris' Eiffel Tower cloaked in the national colors of France, Monday, November 16, 2015
Above: New York Timeswebsite screen image, Monday afternoon, U.S. central time, November 16, 2015
Above: New York Timesphoto (non-dated) of Abdelhamid Abaaoud, ISIS-affiliated fighter
Above: AP photos (From top, left to right)---French President Francois Hollande at Versailles, Monday, November 16, 2015; French President Francois Hollande before Parliament at Versailles, Monday, November 16, 2015; French President Francois Hollande at Sorbonne University, Monday, November 16, 2015; Paris' Eiffel Tower cloaked in blue, white, and red (the national colors of France), Monday, November 16, 2015
Above: HuffingtonPost.com screen image, early Monday evening, U.S. central time, November 16, 2015
Above: New York Timesprint edition front page, Tuesday, November 17, 2015
"France identified a 27-year-old Belgian who once boasted about killing 'infidels' and fought for the Islamic State group in Syria as the mastermind of the Paris attacks, and President Francois Hollande vowed Monday to forge a united coalition capable of defeating the jihadists at home and abroad.
Addressing lawmakers after France observed a minute of silence honoring the 129 people killed and 350 wounded, Hollande said the victims came from at least 19 nations, and the international community, led by the United States and Russia, must overcome their deep-seated divisions over Syria to destroy Islamic State on its home turf."
"President François Hollande of France called on Monday to amend the Constitution to fight potential terrorists at home and for an aggressive effort to 'eradicate' the Islamic State abroad.
His call to arms — 'France is at war,' he said at the opening of his remarks to a joint session of the Parliament — came as security forces in France and Belgium zeroed in on a suspect they said was the architect of the assault that killed 129 people Friday night in Paris. The suspect, a 27-year-old Belgian, has fought for the Islamic State in Syria and has been linked to other terrorist attacks.
Mr. Hollande spoke after the French police raided homes and other sites across the country in an effort to head off possible further attacks and the authorities in Belgium hunted for a suspected assailant in Friday’s attacks."
"President Barack Obama on Monday firmly rejected calls for a shift in U.S. strategy against the Islamic State following the Paris attacks, saying Republicans who want to send ground troops into the volatile region are 'talking as if they're tough' but fail to understand the potentially grave consequences."
"Republican fury over illegal immigration and border security took on a new dimension Monday as a growing number of governors, presidential candidates and members of Congress rushed to oppose or even defy President Obama’s plan to resettle 10,000 Syrian refugees."
---New York Times, November 16, 2015
Russia Declares that Metrojet Airliner Brought Down by Bomb
November 15, 2015 (Tuesday)
Above: HuffingtonPost.com screen image, Tuesday morning, U.S. central time, November 17, 2015
Above: AP photo (via Kremlin photo pool) of Russian President Vladimir Putin at theKremlin in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, November 17, 2015
"A homemade explosive device brought down a Russian passenger plane over Egypt last month, the head of Russia's FSB security service said Tuesday, telling President Vladimir Putin it's now clear the bombing that killed 224 people was a 'terrorist' act.
Putin vowed to hunt down those responsible for the attack, which the Islamic State group claimed to have carried out. Two U.S. defense officials said Russia struck Raqqa, the Islamic State group's self-declared capital in Syria, with cruise missiles and bombs on Tuesday."
---Associated Press, November 17, 2015
France Continues to React to the November 13th Paris Terrorist Attack
November 17, 2015 (Tuesday)
Above: Washington Postwebsite, Tuesday morning, U.S. central time, November 17, 2015
AP photos (Top, Left to Right): Flag of France and statue of Gallic Rooster, War Memorial, Beausoleil, France, Tuesday, November 17, 2015; French President Francois Hollande and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry at Elysee Palace in Paris, Tuesday, November 17, 2015; Soldier in courtyard of the Louvre Museum in Paris, Tuesday, November 17, 2015; French military jet at unidentified air base, photo released on Tuesday, November 17, 2015
"French police hunted Tuesday for a second terrorist believed to have escaped after the bomb and gun massacres in Paris, while a U.S. official revealed that the suspected mastermind was part of an Islamic State cell that American intelligence agencies had been tracking for months.
Meanwhile, France and Russia unleashed a new wave of airstrikes against IS targets in Syria, while fears of further terror attacks deepened in Paris and beyond. The Eiffel Tower closed to the public just a day after it had reopened and a soccer match between Germany and the Netherlands was canceled due to a bomb threat just 90 minutes before kickoff.
Islamic State militants have claimed responsibility for the Friday the 13th attacks that targeted France's national soccer stadium, a packed concert hall and popular restaurants and cafes in one of Paris' trendiest neighborhoods, killing 129 people and wounding more than 350.
French authorities had previously said that at least eight people were directly involved in the bloodshed Friday: seven who died in the attacks and one who got away and slipped across the border to Belgium. However, there have been gaps in officials' public statements, which have never fully disclosed how many attackers took part in the deadly rampage.
On Tuesday, officials disclosed to The Associated Press that they now believe at least one more attacker was involved than was previously known, and they were working to identify and track down that suspect. Three officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to provide details about the ongoing investigation.
A new surveillance video obtained by the AP indicated that a team of three attackers carried out the shootings at one of the cafes. The video was among evidence authorities used in concluding that at least one other attacker was at large, the French officials indicated."
"Turkey and Greece, neighbors that have been often vicious geopolitical rivals for centuries, have attempted in recent years to reconcile their differences, a move that's been given heightened importance during the growing migrant crisis.
Their soccer teams hadn't played each other in eight years, so Tuesday's friendly match in Istanbul presented an opportunity for a power symbolic display of peace and reconciliation.
Instead, Turkish soccer fans booed and hissed loudly during the moment of silence for victims of the Paris attacks last week, and could even be heard chanting 'Allahu Akbar,' during the brief pause before kickoff."
---CBS News, November 18, 2015
French Authorities Conduct Major Raid in Saint Denis on Suspected Jihadists
November 18, 2015 (Wednesday)
Above: New York Timeswebsitescreen image, Wednesday morning, U.S. central time, November 18, 2015
Above: AP map regarding French raid on suspected Jihadist terrorists, a raid carried out on Wednesday, November 18, 2015
Above: French military jet on the deck of the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle in Toulon, France, Wednesday, November 18, 2015
Above: Boston Globepolitical cartoon, November 2015
Above: Cover of The Spectator (British conservative magazine), November 21 2015 issue
"Amid gunfire and explosions, police raided a suburban Paris apartment where the suspected mastermind of last week's attacks was believed to be holed up Wednesday. The siege ended with two deaths and seven arrests but no clear information on the fugitive's fate.
The dead were a woman who blew herself up with an explosive vest and a man hit by projectiles and grenades, the Paris prosecutor said at the end of the seven-hour siege in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis.
Prosecutor Francois Molins said the raid was launched after information from tapped telephone conversations, surveillance and witness accounts indicated that the suspected planner of the attacks, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, might be in a safe house in the district.
Authorities could not immediately confirm whether Abaaoud, a Belgian Islamic State militant, was killed or arrested Wednesday morning.
Investigators have identified 27-year-old Abaaoud, a Belgian of Moroccan descent, as the chief architect of Friday's attacks in Paris, which killed 129 people and injured 350 others.
A U.S. official briefed on intelligence matters said Abaaoud was a key figure in an Islamic State external operations cell that U.S. intelligence agencies have been tracking for many months.
Abaaoud was believed to be in Syria after a January police raid in Belgium, but bragged in Islamic State propaganda of his ability to move back and forth between Europe and Syria undetected."
"The Belgian extremist suspected of masterminding the deadly attacks in Paris died a day ago along with his female cousin in a police raid on a suburban apartment building, French officials said Thursday, adding it was still not clear exactly how he died.
The body of Abdelhamid Abaaoud, 27, was found in the building targeted Wednesday in the chaotic, bloody raid in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis and was identified based on skin samples, the Paris prosecutor's office said Thursday.
Abaaoud ended up near Paris after reportedly being in Syria but officials have not said how he managed to travel across so many borders en route to the French capital. In addition, authorities have not detailed his exact whereabouts or actions during the deadly rampage that killed 129 people last week in Paris.
Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said France did not know before last week's deadly attacks that Abaaoud was in Europe, but said he was believed to be behind four of six attacks thwarted since spring by French authorities.
Three police officials have told The Associated Press that a woman who died in the police raid was Abaaoud's cousin. One said the woman, Hasna Aitboulahcen, is believed to have detonated a suicide vest Wednesday in the building after a brief conversation with police officers."
---Associated Press, November 19, 2015
GOP Presidential Candidate Donald Trump Calls for the Registration of U.S. Muslims
November 19, 2015 (Thursday)
Above: AP photo of GOP presidential candidate Donald J. Trump in Newton, Iowa, Thursday, November 19, 2015
"Bomb attacks on a Shiite mosque and elsewhere in southern Baghdad killed at least 15 people Friday as a top religious official urged unity among Iraqis in the fight against the Islamic State group.
The deadliest of the attacks targeted the mosque in the Iraqi capital's Nahiyet al-Rasheed neighborhood. A roadside bomb blast went off on the street outside the mosque just as worshippers were finishing Friday prayers, police said. Within minutes, a suicide bomber inside the mosque detonated an explosives vest. Ten people were killed and 28 were wounded in that coordinated attack, according to police.
Two separate roadside bombs exploded in commercial areas of southeast Baghdad, killing five people and wounding nine, security officials said.
Hospital officials confirmed the casualties. Like the police, they spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to talk to the media.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks, but near daily attacks in Baghdad are often claimed by the Islamic State group.
In the Shiite holy city of Karbala, the representative of Iraq's most influential Shite cleric called for unity in the fight against IS and condemned recent attacks abroad claimed by the group."
---Associated Press, November 20, 2015
Hostage Situation in the West African Nation of Mali
November 20, 2015 (Friday)
Above: Map of Mali (source: LonelyPlanet.com), a nation in western Africa; AP map of Mali (posted November 20, 2015) with the city of Bamako (site of the Radisson Hotel hostage situation) labeled
"Gunmen stormed a Radisson Blu hotel on Friday morning in Bamako, the capital of the West African nation of Mali, seizing scores of hostages and leaving bodies strewn across parts of the building."
"For a 'silent majority,' the thousands of people inside the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex sure weren't quiet during a Donald Trump campaign rally Saturday, where the Republican front-runner bashed his competition, the media and President Barack Obama in a wide-ranging, stream of consciousness speech.
Trump, who entered to 'Sweet Home Alabama,' assailed the media for a 'false' story about him wanting databases on Muslims in the United States, but said he was in favor of keeping a close eye on followers of Islam who come into the country in the wake of last week's Paris attacks.
'If you don't mind, I want to surveil. I want surveillance of these people that are coming in -- the Trojan horse. I want to know who the hell they are,' Trump said to cheers. 'I want surveillance if we have to... I want surveillance of certain mosques.'
The Republican front-runner also turned on the media when photographers focused their lenses and video cameras on Black Lives Matter protesters who disrupted the rally instead of Trump.
'They can turn the cameras. These are just lying people. They're very dishonest people,' he said. 'It's disgusting. Be ashamed of yourselves fellas, be ashamed of yourselves.'
Birmingham Police said the protesters were asked to leave the venue for causing a 'minor disturbance,' but there were no other incidents related to the rally.
The crowd, which filled up about half of the BJCC's North Exhibition Hall and were given signs that read 'the silent majority stands with Trump,' began chanting 'build that wall' as Trump hit on his signature issue – immigration."
"Donald Trump on Sunday defended erroneous claims he made about U.S. Muslims cheering the 9/11 attacks and said a black protester at a weekend rally here was 'so obnoxious and loud' that 'maybe he should have been roughed up' by white audience members.
The Birmingham rally marks the latest example of Trump’s refusal to back down amid outcries over his often-incendiary racial and religious rhetoric — and comes as polls show him once again with a clear lead over the rest of the candidates seeking the Republican Party’s presidential nomination.
Saturday’s racially charged altercation occurred in Birmingham, famous in the 1960s as a center of the civil rights struggle. The thousands who attended Trump’s rally were nearly all white in a city with a black majority.
Mercutio Southall Jr. — a well-known local activist who has been repeatedly arrested while protesting what he says is unfair treatment of blacks — interrupted Trump’s rally and could be heard shouting, 'Black lives matter!' A fight broke out, prompting Trump to briefly halt his remarks and demand the removal of Southall."
Democrat John Bel Edwards Elected Governor of Louisiana
November 21, 2015 (Saturday)
Above: AP photo of Governor-elect John Bel Edwards (D-Louisiana) hugging his wife Donna in the wake of defeating U.S. Senator David Vitter (R-Louisiana)in the 2015 Louisiana gubernatorial election, November 21, 2015
"Democrat John Bel Edwards won the runoff election for Louisiana governor Saturday, defeating the once-heavy favorite, Republican David Vitter, and handing the Democrats their first statewide victory since 2008.
Edwards, a state lawmaker, will take over the office from term-limited Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal in January.
Voters' rejection of Vitter was a stunning turn of events for the U.S. senator, who has been a political powerhouse in the state for years and started his campaign nearly two years ago as the race's front-runner. Edwards' win offered a rare pick-up of a governor's seat for Democrats in the conservative Deep South.
After his loss, Vitter immediately announced that he wouldn't seek re-election to the U.S. Senate next year, creating a new competition for what had been a safe GOP seat.
Edwards painted the race as a referendum on Vitter's character and integrity and suggested the U.S. senator didn't measure up in such a competition. Edwards focused on his West Point degree and military resume, and he pledged a bipartisan leadership style."
---Associated Press, November 22, 2015
2015 NFL Season: Carolina Panthers Remain Undefeated (10 Wins, 0 Losses) by Defeating the Washington Redskins
"Long the dominant group in American religious life, White Christians have fallen below a majority of the U.S. population—and they are moving to the right politically as they recede.
The result is that, like race and age, religious affiliation marks a sharpening point of distinction between Republicans and Democrats, previously unpublished results from the Pew Research Center’s massive Religious Landscape survey show.
As the nation relentlessly diversifies, both in its racial composition and religious preferences, White Christians now represent just 46 percent of American adults, according to Pew data provided in response to a request from Next America. That’s down from a 55 percent majority as recently as 2007, and much higher figures through most of U.S. history.
Yet even as White Christians shrink in their overall numbers, they still account for nearly seven-in-10 Americans who identify with, or lean toward, the Republican Party, the Pew study found. White Christians, in fact, represent as large a share of the Republican coalition today as they did of American society overall in 1984, when Ronald Reagan won reelection. A clear majority of all White Christians across the United States now identify as Republican, Pew found."
---Ronald Brownstein, National Journal, November 23, 2015
Turkey Shoots Down Russian Military Jet
November 24, 2015 (Tuesday)
Above: Map of Turkey (Source: LonelyPlanet.com)
Above: AP photo of a Russian military jet aflame and crashing after being hit by Turkish military weaponry, Tuesday, November 24, 2015
Above: HuffingtonPost.com screen image, late Tuesday morning, U.S. central time, November 24, 2015
Above: President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan; President of Russia Vladimir Putin; President of Syria Bashar al-Assad
"Unknown attackers fired rockets at a United Nations peacekeeping base in northern Mali on Saturday, killing three people inside, the U.N. said, in the latest sign that the West African country's Islamist insurgency is intensifying.
French troops and the 10,000-strong U.N. force, known as MINUSMA, are struggling to stabilize the former French colony. Islamist militants attacked a hotel in the capital Bamako on Nov. 20 and killed 20 people, in their bloodiest attack yet in the country's south.
Desert-based jihadists regularly launch rockets and missiles at northern U.N. bases, especially around full moon when the lighter nights make it easier to target the camps, although it is rare for the missiles to land inside the walls."
---Reuters, November 28, 2015
2015 NFL Season: The Denver Broncos Defeated the Previously Undefeated New England Patriots
November 29, 2015 (Sunday)
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) Approves China's Renminbi as a Reserve Currency
November 2015
ISIS Captures Town in Western Syria
November 1, 2015 (Sunday)
Above: Map of Syria; President of Syria Bashar al-Assad
Reuters: ISIS Captures Town in Syria, November 1, 2015
"Islamic State fighters drove Syrian government forces from a town in the west of the country on Sunday, as fighting looked set to intensify despite a flurry of international diplomacy and talks between regional rivals.
The jihadists' advance came even as Russian warplanes and Syrian forces supported by them stepped up assaults against insurgents in west and northwest Syria, and the United States separately sought to increase pressure on Islamic State."
---Reuters, November 1, 2015
2015 Major League Baseball World Series Game 5: Kansas City Royals Defeated the New York Mets, and Won the Series
November 1, 2015 (Sunday)
Bleak Mortality Data Regarding U.S. Middle-Aged Whites
November 2, 2015 (Monday)
Washington Post: Bleak Data for Middle-Aged American Whites
"A large segment of white middle-aged Americans has suffered a startling rise in its death rate since 1999, according to a review of statistics published Monday that shows a sharp reversal in decades of progress toward longer lives.
The mortality rate for white men and women ages 45-54 with less than a college education increased markedly between 1999 and 2013, most likely because of problems with legal and illegal drugs, alcohol and suicide, the researchers concluded. Before then, death rates for that group dropped steadily, and at a faster pace.
An increase in the mortality rate for any large demographic group in an advanced nation has been virtually unheard of in recent decades, with the exception of Russian men after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The rising death rate was accompanied by an increase in the rate of illness, the authors wrote in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences."
---Washington Post, November 2, 2015
New York Times: Death Rates Increasing Among American Non-Hispanic Middle-Aged Whites
Pew Research Center Study: American Religious Belief and Observance Declines from 2007 to 2014
November 3, 2015 (Tuesday)
Pew Research Center: "U.S. Public Becoming Less Religious"
"Is the American public becoming less religious? Yes, at least by some key measures of what it means to be a religious person. An extensive new survey of more than 35,000 U.S. adults finds that the percentages who say they believe in God, pray daily and regularly go to church or other religious services all have declined modestly in recent years.
But the Pew Research Center study also finds a great deal of stability in the U.S. religious landscape. The recent decrease in religious beliefs and behaviors is largely attributable to the 'nones' – the growing minority of Americans, particularly in the Millennial generation, who say they do not belong to any organized faith. Among the roughly three-quarters of U.S. adults who do claim a religion, there has been no discernible drop in most measures of religious commitment. Indeed, by some conventional measures, religiously affiliated Americans are, on average, even more devout than they were a few years ago.
The 2014 Religious Landscape Study is a follow-up to an equally extensive survey on religion in America, conducted in 2007. An initial report on the findings from the 2014 study, released in May 2015, described the changing size and demographic characteristics of the nation’s major religious groups. This report focuses on Americans’ religious beliefs and practices and assesses how they have changed in recent years.
The share of U.S. adults who say they believe in God, while still remarkably high by comparison with other advanced industrial countries, has declined modestly, from approximately 92% to 89%, since Pew Research Center conducted its first Landscape Study in 2007.1 The share of Americans who say they are 'absolutely certain' God exists has dropped more sharply, from 71% in 2007 to 63% in 2014. And the percentages who say they pray every day, attend religious services regularly and consider religion to be very important in their lives also have ticked down by small but statistically significant margins."
---Pew Research Center, November 3, 2015
Liberal Party Leader Justin Trudeau Becomes Prime Minister of Canada
November 4, 2015 (Wednesday)
Above: Justin Trudeau
Dow Jones Industrial Average Closes at 17,863
November 5, 2015 (Thursday)
Above: Reuters chart showing a DJIA closing at 17,863 on November 5, 2015
Monthly Jobs Report: U.S. Economy Added 271,000 Jobs in October as Unemployment Drops to 5%
November 6, 2015 (Friday)
Above: DrudgeReport.com headline on November 6, 2015
Above: New York Times charts regarding the October jobs report, November 6, 2015
Above: United States Department of Labor Twitter post, November 6, 2015; President Barack Obama
Associated Press: U.S. Economy Adds 271K Jobs in October 2015; Unemployment Rate Drops to 5%
New York Times: Hiring Surge in October 2015 as U.S. Economy Adds 271,000 Jobs
Several University of Missouri Black Football Players Declare Strike in Protest of Mizzou President
November 7, 2015 (Saturday)
Above: Satirical Twitter post by PFTCommenter regarding the Mizzou football players' boycott
ESPN: Black Missouri Tigers Football Players Declare Strike in Protest of Mizzou President
"A group of black players on the Missouri football team says it will stop participating in football activities until university system president Tim Wolfe resigns.
The announcement came via Twitter on Saturday night in a post by Missouri's Legion of Black Collegians. It comes after several recent racial incidents on Missouri's campus, and with Wolfe under fire for how he has handled them.
The tweet included a photograph of 32 black men, including starting running back Russell Hansbrough."
---ESPN, November 7, 2015
Associated Press: Thirty-two Black Mizzou Football Players Declare Strike
Washington Post: Thirty-two Black Mizzou Football Players Declare a Strike
"With the backing of their head coach, football players at Missouri are threatening to stop participating in any football activities until the president of the university system is fired or resigns. In a late afternoon statement, though, the president declined to do so, saying instead that the school would start a systemwide diversity examination.
The players’ action stems from troubling racial incidents on the Columbia, Mo., campus, incidents that Missouri’s Legion of Black Collegians believes were poorly handled by Tim Wolfe. The campus-wide group announced its decision, using the hashtag #ConcernedStudent1950 and a photo of 32 black men on Twitter on Saturday night. Concerned Student 1950, the student activism group leading the protests, is named for the year Missouri first admitted African-American students.
'The athletes of color on the University of Missouri football team truly believe ‘Injustice Anywhere is a threat to Justice Everywhere,' the tweet read. 'We will no longer participate in any football related activities until President Tim Wolfe resigns or is removed due to his negligence toward marginalized students’ experiences. WE ARE UNITED!!!!!'"
---Washington Post, November 8, 2015
New York Times: Black Mizzou Football Players Declare Themselves on Strike, Demanding Resignation of University President
The Nation's Dave Zirin: Mizzou Football Players Go On Strike!
"On Saturday night, the black players on the University of Missouri’s football team—a team in the national-title hunt just two years ago—went on strike against racism. The strike has the potential to cost the Southeastern Conference football program millions of dollars, because the conditions for black students on campus have become simply unendurable."
---Dave Zirin, The Nation, November 8, 2015
Controversial GOP Presidential Candidate Donald Trump Hosts Saturday Night Live
November 7-8, 2015 (Saturday)
Above: Demonstrators in New York City protesting Donald Trump's appearance on NBC's Saturday Night Live, November 7, 2015
Associated Press: Donald Trump Hosts NBC's Saturday Night Live
Investigators Leaning Towards Conclusion that a Bomb Brought Down Russian Metrojet Flight on October 31st
November 8, 2015 (Sunday)
Reuters: View Increasing that Bomb Brought Down Oct 31st Metrojet Flight
"Investigators of the Russian plane crash in Egypt are '90 percent sure' the noise heard in the final second of a cockpit recording was an explosion caused by a bomb, a member of the investigation team told Reuters on Sunday.
The Airbus (AIR.PA) A321 crashed 23 minutes after taking off from the Sharm al-Sheikh tourist resort eight days ago, killing all 224 passengers and crew. Islamic State militants fighting Egyptian security forces in Sinai said they brought it down."
---Reuters, November 8, 2015
CNN: U.S. Analysts Increasingly Viewing ISIS as the Culprit in the Destruction of the Russian Metrojet Mid-Flight Disintegration Over Sinai, Egypt
New York Times: Prevailing Opinion Grows that Bomb Brought Down Russian Metrojet Airliner on October 31, 2015
"Senior House members said Sunday that there was a mounting consensus among American intelligence officials that a bomb brought down the Russian charter jet that crashed last month in the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt, killing all 224 people on board."
---New York Times, November 8, 2015
2015 National Football League Season: Carolina Panthers 37, Green Bay Packers 29
November 8, 2015 (Sunday)
ESPN: Carolina Panthers Outlast the Green Bay Packers to Improve to 8-0
"What better time for Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton to legitimize his MVP legitimacy than with reigning MVP Aaron Rodgers in town?
And in front of a national television audience.
Much of the statement was made in the first half of Sunday’s 37-29 victory over Green Bay as Newton made plays the way Rodgers did all last season when he had 38 touchdown passes to only five interceptions.
Newton accounted for more than 200 yards passing and three touchdowns – two passing and one rushing -- for the first time in any half of his career.
He finished with 297 yards passing and four touchdowns to give the Panthers (8-0) a two-game lead over any team in the NFC."
---ESPN, November 8, 2015
University of Missouri President Tim Wolfe Announces Resignation
November 9, 2015 (Monday)
Above:
Washington Post: Mizzou Football Players Take Down the University President
Washington Post: Mizzou President Resigns, November 9, 2015
Associated Press: Mizzou President Announces Resignation, November 9, 2015
"The president of the University of Missouri system and the head of its flagship campus resigned Monday with the football team and others on campus in open revolt over what they saw as indifference to racial tensions at the school.
President Tim Wolfe, a former business executive with no previous experience in academic leadership, took 'full responsibility for the frustration' students expressed and said their complaints were 'clear' and 'real.'
For months, black student groups had complained that Wolfe was unresponsive to racial slurs and other slights on the overwhelmingly white main campus of the state's four-college system. The complaints came to a head two days ago, when at least 30 black football players announced that they would not play until the president left. A graduate student went on a weeklong hunger strike.
Wolfe's announcement came at the start of what had been expected to be a lengthy closed-door meeting of the school's governing board.
'This is not the way change comes about,' he said, alluding to recent protests, in a halting statement that was simultaneously apologetic, clumsy and defiant. 'We stopped listening to each other.'
He urged students, faculty and staff to use the resignation 'to heal and start talking again to make the changes necessary.'
Hours later, the top administrator of the Columbia campus, Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin, announced that he would step down at the end of the year and shift to leading research efforts.
The school's undergraduate population is 79 percent white and 8 percent black. The state is about 83 percent white and nearly 12 percent black. The Columbia campus is about 120 miles west of Ferguson, Missouri, where Michael Brown was killed last year in a fatal shooting that helped spawn the national 'Black Lives Matter' movement rebuking police treatment of minorities.
In response to the race complaints, Wolfe had taken little public action and made few statements. As students leveled more grievances this fall, he was increasingly seen as aloof, out of touch and insensitive to their concerns. He soon became the protesters' main target."
---Associated Press, November 9, 2015
Dave Zirin's Thoughts on the Resignation of Mizzou President Tim Wolfe, November 9, 2015
National Review: "Abject Missouri"
GOP Presidential Debate in Milwaukee, Wisconsin
November 10, 2015 (Tuesday)
Washington Post: Coverage of the 4th GOP Debate, November 10, 2015
"The leading Republican presidential candidates clashed sharply over immigration policy, military spending, and other intractable and emotional issues in a debate here Tuesday night, bringing into sharp relief the party’s fault line between rigid conservatism and mainstream practicality.
The two-hour debate spotlighted the rift between the outsider candidates and establishment governors over how strictly to enforce immigration laws and whether to provide a pathway to legal status for the country’s more than 11 million undocumented immigrants or deport them.
It also revived a long-simmering dispute over the size and role of the U.S. military, with Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.) warning of the potential adverse fiscal effects of increased defense spending and Sens. Marco Rubio (Fla.) and Ted Cruz (Tex.) advocating a more muscular American military presence in the world."
---Washington Post, November 11, 2015
Washington Post's Chris Cillizza: The Winners and Losers of the Fourth GOP Debate
November 11, 2015 (Wednesday)
Above: AP copy of Boone County booking photo of Hunter Park who was arrested on November 11, 2015
Reuters: Man Arrested for Making Threats Against African-Americans in Missouri, November 11, 2015
"Two white men were arrested on Wednesday on suspicion of making threats on social media against black people, two days after the University of Missouri's president and chancellor stepped down amid protests over their handling of reports of racial abuse.
Tension was still high on the main Columbia campus, where there was a greater-than-usual police presence. Several students leaving the area said they felt unsafe.
Police arrested Hunter Park in Rolla, Missouri, which is about 95 miles (150 km) south of Columbia, at about 1:50 a.m. local time (0750 GMT). Early Wednesday afternoon, police also arrested Connor Stottlemyre, 19. Both made threats on 'Yik Yak,' a social media site, officials said."
---Reuters, November 11, 2015
Kurdish Peshmerga Forces in Iraq Launch Offensive Against ISIS
November 12, 2015 (Thursday)
Above: AP photo of billowing smoke over Sinjar, Iraq, November 12, 2015
Above: AP map and graphic (posted November 12, 2015) regarding the Kurdish offensive against ISIS forces in and near ISIS-occupied Sinjar, Iraq
Associated Press: Kurds Launch Offensive Against ISIS Forces in Sinjar, November 12, 2015
"Kurdish Iraqi fighters, backed by U.S.-led airstrikes, launched a major assault Thursday aiming to retake the strategic town of Sinjar, which the Islamic State group overran last year in an onslaught that caused the flight of tens of thousands of Yazidis and first prompted the United States to launch the air campaign against the militants.
Hours into the operation, the Kurdish Regional Security Council said forces were in control of a section of Highway 47, of one of IS's most active supply lines.
The advance completely isolates members of the IS group in Sinjar from militant strongholds in Syria and northern Iraq. The Kurdish fighters also said they had secured the villages of Gabarra, on the western front, and Tel Shore, Fadhelya and Qen on the eastern front."
---Associated Press, November 12, 2015
Associated Press: U.S. Believes "Jihadi John" Killed in Airstrike
GOP Presidential Candidate Donald Trump Delivers Vitriolic Speech in Fort Dodge, Iowa
November 12, 2015 (Thursday)
NPR: Donald Trump Rants in Fort Dodge, Iowa, November 12, 2015
Washington Post: Donald Trump Goes on Long Rant in Fort Dodge, Iowa, November 12, 2015
Suicide Bomber Kills Over a Dozen at Shi'ite Funeral in Baghdad, Iraq
November 13, 2015 (Friday)
Above: Map of Iraq
Reuters: Suicide Bomber Kills Over a Dozen at Shi'ite Funeral in Baghdad, Iraq, November 13, 2015
"At least 18 people were killed and 41 wounded when a suicide bomber blew himself up at the funeral of a pro-government Shi'ite Muslim fighter in Baghdad on Friday, Iraqi police and medical sources said.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast at a mosque in the predominately Shi'ite neighborhood of Hay al-Amil.
The ultra-hardline Sunni militants of Islamic State who control large parts of Iraq's north and west frequently set off bombs in the capital and further afield.
The funeral was for a member of the Hashid Shaabi, a government umbrella group comprised mostly of Shi'ite fighters seen as a critical force in the battle against Islamic State.
Iraq has been afflicted by sectarian conflict mainly between Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims since shortly after the U.S.-led invasion that toppled dictator Saddam Hussein in 2003."
---Reuters, November 13, 2015
Kurdish Peshmerga Forces Enter Sinjar, Iraq
November 13, 2015 (Friday)
Above: AP photo of a Kurdish Peshmerga outpost near Sinjar, Iraq, Friday, November 13, 2015
Above: AP photo of a Kurdish Peshmerga outpost near Sinjar, Iraq, Friday, November 13, 2015
Above: AP photo of a devastated street in Sinjar, Iraq, Friday, November 13, 2015
Above: AP photo of a Kurdish Peshmerga fighter near a largely destroyed building in Sinjar, Iraq, Friday, November 13, 2015
Above: BBC map, graphic, and high altitude photos regarding Sinjar, Iraq, posted November 13, 2015
Associated Press: Kurdish Peshmerga Forces Enter Sinjar, Iraq, November 13, 2015
"Iraqi Kurdish militias battling to take back Sinjar from Islamic State militants raised a Kurdish flag in the center of town and a top official said it was liberated Friday, though U.S. and Kurdish military officials urged caution in declaring victory in a major offensive to retake the strategic community.
The Kurdish forces encountered little resistance, at least initially, suggesting that many of the IS fighters may have pulled back in anticipation of Friday's advance. It was also possible that they could be biding their time before striking back.
Kurdish militia fighters known as peshmerga launched a major offensive to retake Sinjar and succeeded in cutting a key nearby highway on Thursday. U.S.-led coalition airstrikes supported the offensive, dubbed Operation Free Sinjar.
Sinjar has been under the control of the Islamic State group for more than a year. The town was overrun by the extremists as they rampaged across Iraq in August 2014, leading to the killing, enslavement and flight of thousands of people from the minority Yazidi community."
---Associated Press, November 13, 2015
Reuters: ISIS-Held Sinjar, Iraq Falls to Kurdish Peshmerga Forces, November 13, 2015
"Kurdish peshmerga forces backed by U.S. air strikes seized the Iraqi town of Sinjar from Islamic State on Friday, a Reuters witness said, in one of the most significant counter-attacks since the militants swept through the north last year."
---Reuters, November 13, 2015
Massive Jihadist Terrorist Attack in Paris, France: Over 100 Killed in Complex Assault
November 13, 2015 (Friday)
Above: CNN website screen image, November 13, 2015
Above: LeFigaro.fr (French newspaper) screen image, November 14, 2015 (Paris, France time)
Above: New York Times website screen image, November 13, 2015
Above: Washington Post website screen image, November 13, 2015
Above: AP photo by Anne Sophie Chaisemartin of the aftermath of the terrorist attack in Paris, France on Friday, November 13, 2015
Above: BBC map and aerial photo of areas Paris that were sites where terrorists carried out attacks on Friday, October 13, 2015
Above: HuffingtonPost.com composite photo of several front pages of newspapers covering the November 13, 2015 deadly terrorist attack in Paris, France
Above: New York Times front page, Saturday, November 14, 2015
New York Times: Coverage of the Deadly Jihadist Terrorist Attack in Paris, France
"The Paris area reeled Friday night from a shooting rampage, explosions and mass hostage-taking that President François Hollande called an unprecedented terrorist attack on France. His government announced sharply increased border controls and heightened police powers as it mobilized the military in a national emergency.
French television and news services quoted the police as saying that around 100 people had been killed at a concert site where hostages had been held during a two-hour standoff with the police, and that perhaps dozens of others had been killed in apparently coordinated attacks outside the country’s main sports stadium and four other popular locations in the city. But estimates on the total number of dead varied.
Witnesses on French television said the scene at the concert hall, which can seat as many as 1,500 people, was a massacre, describing how gunmen with automatic weapons shot bursts of bullets into the crowd."
---New York Times, November 13, 2015
French President Francois Hollande Declares that ISIS Carried Out the Paris Terrorist Attacks
November 14, 2015 (Saturday)
Above: New York Times website screen image, Saturday, November 14, 2015
Above: New York Times print edition, Sunday, November 15, 2015
Above: Francois Hollande, President of France, Leader of the Socialist Party; Nicolas Sarkozy, former President of France, 2007-2012, Leader in the French Republican Party; Marine Le Pen, Leader of the National Front, a prominent right-wing anti-immigrant French political party
Above: Wall Street Journal Twitter post showing an Army football player carrying the French flag onto a football field on Saturday, November 14, 2015
Above: Huffington Post Twitter post showing an Army football player carrying a French Flag on the field, Saturday, November 14, 2015
The Atlantic: "How ISIS Spread in the Middle East"
"What is ravaging the Middle East right now is obviously deeper than ISIS. It has become commonplace over the last year to observe that we are witnessing the collapse of the post-Ottoman order—that the 'lines in the sand' conjured in 1916 by the British and French diplomats Mark Sykes and François Georges-Picot are being blown to dust. But we haven’t reckoned with how the insurgents perceive that process. ISIS has religious, psychological, and technological faces. But in some fundamental respects it is an anti-colonial movement that takes as its reference point Islam’s pre-colonial conception of power—an Islamic state, a Sunni caliphate. Even if ISIS is crushed, this idea of 'our caliphate' is likely to persist, and return."
---David Ignatius, The Atlantic, October 29, 2015
The Daily Beast: Marine Le Pen's Right-Wing National Front Enhanced by Paris Attacks
"Marine Le Pen, France’s answer to Donald Trump, lost no time cementing her growing power base as leader of the country’s far-right National Front just hours after the Paris attacks when she called for the 'annihilation' of Islamist radicals.
Le Pen, whose stump speeches in the depressed cities of northern France include dire warnings of the 'giant migratory wave,' told reporters in Paris on Saturday that the country had to clamp down on Islamist fundamentalism, shut down mosques and expel dangerous 'foreigners' and 'illegal migrants.'
Le Pen is the daughter of notorious xenophone Jean-Marie Le Pen, who founded the National Front in 1972. She forced him out of the party this past summer after his latest racist remarks. This weekened, she was just one of Europe's far-right figures attempting to make political capital out of the Paris attacks."
---The Daily Beast, November 15, 2015
The Daily Beast's Christopher Dickey: On to Raqqa?
"What the politicians ultimately will decide, even they may not know. But among veterans of the terror wars in France and the United States, there is a growing focus on the capital of the putative caliphate, Raqqa, in eastern Syria."
---Christopher Dickey, The Daily Beast, November 14, 2015
"Paris is on Fire"
"Before the French authorities had even finished counting the dead, the Islamic State was already onto the next phase of its operation: not only claiming credit for Friday’s devastating attacks in Paris but rallying its supporters and taunting the enemy that there was more to come. The terrorist group’s fans online quickly followed suit. Within hours, jihadist social media was erupting with praise, boasts, and wild speculation about what else might be in store."
---Politico, November 14, 2015
New York Times: ISIS Purportedly Claims Responsibility for Paris Terrorist Attack
"The Islamic State claimed responsibility on Saturday for the catastrophic attacks in the French capital, calling them 'the first of the storm' and mocking France as a 'capital of prostitution and obscenity,' according to statements released in multiple languages on one of the terror group’s encrypted messaging accounts."
---New York Times, November 14, 2015
Washington Post: French President Francois Hollande Claims ISIS Responsible for the Terrorist Attack in Paris
"French President François Hollande decried the massacres across Paris as an 'act of war' by the Islamic State, amplifying signals Saturday of a major response from France and its allies after coordinated gunfire and bombings that killed at least 127 people.
Moments later, a message attributed to the Islamic State asserted responsibility for the worst attacks in France since World War II and among of the most deadly terrorist strikes on Western soil since Sept. 11, 2001.
It also further reinforced worries of expanded Islamic State reach through recruitment and propaganda, and apparent evolving tactics among its fighters that include commando-style raids against its foes in the West and elsewhere."
---Washington Post, November 14, 2015
Democratic Presidential Debate in Des Moines, Iowa
November 14, 2015 (Saturday)
Above: AP photo of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton at the Democratic presidential debate in Des Moines, Iowa on Saturday, November 14, 2015
Associated Press: Coverage of the Democratic Presidential Debate in Des Moines, Iowa, November 14, 2015
French Authorities Continue to React to the Jihadist Attacks on Paris
November 15, 2015 (Sunday)
Above: New York Times website screen image, Sunday, November 15, 2015
Above: HuffingtonPost.com screen image on Sunday afternoon (CST), November 15, 2015
Above: AP photo of a display screen in Pittsburgh at the Steelers vs. Cleveland Browns NFL game, Sunday, November 15, 2015
Above: Think Progress Twitter post, November 15, 2015
Associated Press: Coverage of the Aftermath of the Jihadist Terrorist Attacks on Paris
"France launched 'massive' air strikes on the Islamic State group's de-facto capital in Syria Sunday night, destroying a jihadi training camp and a munitions dump in the city of Raqqa, where Iraqi intelligence officials say the attacks on Paris were planned.
Twelve aircraft including 10 fighter jets dropped a total of 20 bombs in the biggest air strikes since France extended its bombing campaign against the extremist group to Syria in September, a Defense Ministry statement said. The jets launched from sites in Jordan and the Persian Gulf, in coordination with U.S. forces.
Meanwhile, as police announced seven arrests and hunted for more members of the sleeper cell that carried out the Paris attacks, French officials revealed to The Associated Press that several key suspects had been stopped and released by police after the attack.
The arrest warrant for Salah Abdeslam, a 26-year-old born in Brussels, calls him very dangerous and warns people not to intervene if they see him.
Yet police already had him in their grasp early Saturday, when they stopped a car carrying three men near the Belgian border. By then, hours had passed since authorities identified Abdeslam as the renter of a Volkswagen Polo that carried hostage takers to the Paris theater where so many died.
Three French police officials and a top French security official confirmed that officers let Abdeslam go after checking his ID. They spoke on condition of anonymity, lacking authorization to publicly disclose such details.
Tantalizing clues about the extent of the plot have emerged from Baghdad, where senior Iraqi officials told the AP that France and other countries had been warned on Thursday of an imminent attack.
An Iraqi intelligence dispatch warned that Islamic State group leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi had ordered his followers to immediately launch gun and bomb attacks and take hostages inside the countries of the coalition fighting them in Iraq and Syria."
---Associated Press, November 15, 2015
New York Times: ISIS Officials Communicated with Paris Terrorists
"The attackers in Friday’s terrorist assault in Paris communicated at some point beforehand with known members of the Islamic State in Syria, officials on both sides of the Atlantic say, adding evidence to the assertions that the radical group coordinated or helped carry out the attacks rather than simply inspiring them.
President François Hollande of France has characterized the attacks, which killed at least 129 people on Friday night, as 'an act of war' carried out by the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. He provided no specific information, but the Islamic State released statements on Saturday claiming responsibility for the attacks, part of increasing indications that the group is becoming more capable of extending its reach far beyond its base in Syria and Iraq."
---New York Times, November 15, 2015
France Launches Airstrikes Against ISIS Targets in Raqqa, Syria
November 15, 2015 (Sunday)
Above: HuffingtonPost.com screen image, late Sunday afternoon (CST), November 15, 2015
Above: New York Times print edition front page, Monday, November 16, 2015
Reuters: France Conducts Airstrikes Against ISIS Targets in Raqqa, Syria, November 15, 2015
"French warplanes pounded Islamic State positions in Syria on Sunday as police in Europe widened their investigations into coordinated attacks in Paris that killed more than 130 people.
Islamic State has claimed responsibility for Friday's suicide bombings and shootings, which have re-ignited a row over Europe's refugee crisis and drawn calls to block a huge influx of Muslim asylum-seekers."
---Reuters, November 15, 2015
New York Times: France Conducts Airstrikes on Raqqa, Syria, November 15, 2015
"France bombed the Syrian city of Raqqa on Sunday night, its most aggressive strike against the Islamic State group it blames for killing 129 people in a string of terrorist attacks across Paris only two days before.
President François Hollande, who vowed to be 'unforgiving with the barbarians' of the Islamic State after the carnage in Paris, decided on the airstrikes in a meeting with his national security team on Saturday, officials said."
---New York Times, November 15, 2015
France Continues to React to the Jihadist Terrorist Attacks of November 13th
November 16, 2015 (Monday)
Above: AP photo of Paris' Eiffel Tower cloaked in the national colors of France, Monday, November 16, 2015
Above: New York Times website screen image, Monday afternoon, U.S. central time, November 16, 2015
Above: New York Times photo (non-dated) of Abdelhamid Abaaoud, ISIS-affiliated fighter
Above: AP photos (From top, left to right)---French President Francois Hollande at Versailles, Monday, November 16, 2015; French President Francois Hollande before Parliament at Versailles, Monday, November 16, 2015; French President Francois Hollande at Sorbonne University, Monday, November 16, 2015; Paris' Eiffel Tower cloaked in blue, white, and red (the national colors of France), Monday, November 16, 2015
Above: HuffingtonPost.com screen image, early Monday evening, U.S. central time, November 16, 2015
Above: New York Times print edition front page, Tuesday, November 17, 2015
Associated Press: Coverage of the Paris Terrorist Attacks, November 16, 2015
"France identified a 27-year-old Belgian who once boasted about killing 'infidels' and fought for the Islamic State group in Syria as the mastermind of the Paris attacks, and President Francois Hollande vowed Monday to forge a united coalition capable of defeating the jihadists at home and abroad.
Addressing lawmakers after France observed a minute of silence honoring the 129 people killed and 350 wounded, Hollande said the victims came from at least 19 nations, and the international community, led by the United States and Russia, must overcome their deep-seated divisions over Syria to destroy Islamic State on its home turf."
---Associated Press, November 16, 2015
New York Times: Coverage of the Paris Terrorist Attacks, November 16, 2015
"President François Hollande of France called on Monday to amend the Constitution to fight potential terrorists at home and for an aggressive effort to 'eradicate' the Islamic State abroad.
His call to arms — 'France is at war,' he said at the opening of his remarks to a joint session of the Parliament — came as security forces in France and Belgium zeroed in on a suspect they said was the architect of the assault that killed 129 people Friday night in Paris. The suspect, a 27-year-old Belgian, has fought for the Islamic State in Syria and has been linked to other terrorist attacks.
Mr. Hollande spoke after the French police raided homes and other sites across the country in an effort to head off possible further attacks and the authorities in Belgium hunted for a suspected assailant in Friday’s attacks."
---New York Times, November 16, 2015
Associated Press: President Obama States he Plans to Stay the Course on his Syria Strategy, Monday, November 16, 2015
"President Barack Obama on Monday firmly rejected calls for a shift in U.S. strategy against the Islamic State following the Paris attacks, saying Republicans who want to send ground troops into the volatile region are 'talking as if they're tough' but fail to understand the potentially grave consequences."
---Associated Press, November 16, 2015
New York Times: GOP Governors Seeking to Keep Out Syrian Refugees
"Republican fury over illegal immigration and border security took on a new dimension Monday as a growing number of governors, presidential candidates and members of Congress rushed to oppose or even defy President Obama’s plan to resettle 10,000 Syrian refugees."
---New York Times, November 16, 2015
Russia Declares that Metrojet Airliner Brought Down by Bomb
November 15, 2015 (Tuesday)
Above: HuffingtonPost.com screen image, Tuesday morning, U.S. central time, November 17, 2015
Above: AP photo (via Kremlin photo pool) of Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, November 17, 2015
Associated Press: Russia Concludes that the October 31st Metrojet Airliner Crash was Caused by Bomb, November 17, 2015
"A homemade explosive device brought down a Russian passenger plane over Egypt last month, the head of Russia's FSB security service said Tuesday, telling President Vladimir Putin it's now clear the bombing that killed 224 people was a 'terrorist' act.
Putin vowed to hunt down those responsible for the attack, which the Islamic State group claimed to have carried out. Two U.S. defense officials said Russia struck Raqqa, the Islamic State group's self-declared capital in Syria, with cruise missiles and bombs on Tuesday."
---Associated Press, November 17, 2015
France Continues to React to the November 13th Paris Terrorist Attack
November 17, 2015 (Tuesday)
Above: Washington Post website, Tuesday morning, U.S. central time, November 17, 2015
AP photos (Top, Left to Right): Flag of France and statue of Gallic Rooster, War Memorial, Beausoleil, France, Tuesday, November 17, 2015; French President Francois Hollande and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry at Elysee Palace in Paris, Tuesday, November 17, 2015; Soldier in courtyard of the Louvre Museum in Paris, Tuesday, November 17, 2015; French military jet at unidentified air base, photo released on Tuesday, November 17, 2015
Associated Press: Coverage of the Paris Terrorist Attacks, November 17, 2015
"French police hunted Tuesday for a second terrorist believed to have escaped after the bomb and gun massacres in Paris, while a U.S. official revealed that the suspected mastermind was part of an Islamic State cell that American intelligence agencies had been tracking for months.
Meanwhile, France and Russia unleashed a new wave of airstrikes against IS targets in Syria, while fears of further terror attacks deepened in Paris and beyond. The Eiffel Tower closed to the public just a day after it had reopened and a soccer match between Germany and the Netherlands was canceled due to a bomb threat just 90 minutes before kickoff.
Islamic State militants have claimed responsibility for the Friday the 13th attacks that targeted France's national soccer stadium, a packed concert hall and popular restaurants and cafes in one of Paris' trendiest neighborhoods, killing 129 people and wounding more than 350.
French authorities had previously said that at least eight people were directly involved in the bloodshed Friday: seven who died in the attacks and one who got away and slipped across the border to Belgium. However, there have been gaps in officials' public statements, which have never fully disclosed how many attackers took part in the deadly rampage.
On Tuesday, officials disclosed to The Associated Press that they now believe at least one more attacker was involved than was previously known, and they were working to identify and track down that suspect. Three officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to provide details about the ongoing investigation.
A new surveillance video obtained by the AP indicated that a team of three attackers carried out the shootings at one of the cafes. The video was among evidence authorities used in concluding that at least one other attacker was at large, the French officials indicated."
---Associated Press, November 17, 2015
CBS News: Soccer Fans in Turkey Shout "Allahu Akbar" Just Prior to Kickoff of Soccer Match Between Turkey and Greece, November 17, 2015
"Turkey and Greece, neighbors that have been often vicious geopolitical rivals for centuries, have attempted in recent years to reconcile their differences, a move that's been given heightened importance during the growing migrant crisis.
Their soccer teams hadn't played each other in eight years, so Tuesday's friendly match in Istanbul presented an opportunity for a power symbolic display of peace and reconciliation.
Instead, Turkish soccer fans booed and hissed loudly during the moment of silence for victims of the Paris attacks last week, and could even be heard chanting 'Allahu Akbar,' during the brief pause before kickoff."
---CBS News, November 18, 2015
French Authorities Conduct Major Raid in Saint Denis on Suspected Jihadists
November 18, 2015 (Wednesday)
Above: New York Times website screen image, Wednesday morning, U.S. central time, November 18, 2015
Above: AP map regarding French raid on suspected Jihadist terrorists, a raid carried out on Wednesday, November 18, 2015
Above: French military jet on the deck of the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle in Toulon, France, Wednesday, November 18, 2015
Above: Boston Globe political cartoon, November 2015
Above: Cover of The Spectator (British conservative magazine), November 21 2015 issue
Associated Press: Coverage of the Aftermath of the Paris Terrorist Attack, November 18, 2015
"Amid gunfire and explosions, police raided a suburban Paris apartment where the suspected mastermind of last week's attacks was believed to be holed up Wednesday. The siege ended with two deaths and seven arrests but no clear information on the fugitive's fate.
The dead were a woman who blew herself up with an explosive vest and a man hit by projectiles and grenades, the Paris prosecutor said at the end of the seven-hour siege in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis.
Prosecutor Francois Molins said the raid was launched after information from tapped telephone conversations, surveillance and witness accounts indicated that the suspected planner of the attacks, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, might be in a safe house in the district.
Authorities could not immediately confirm whether Abaaoud, a Belgian Islamic State militant, was killed or arrested Wednesday morning.
Investigators have identified 27-year-old Abaaoud, a Belgian of Moroccan descent, as the chief architect of Friday's attacks in Paris, which killed 129 people and injured 350 others.
A U.S. official briefed on intelligence matters said Abaaoud was a key figure in an Islamic State external operations cell that U.S. intelligence agencies have been tracking for many months.
Abaaoud was believed to be in Syria after a January police raid in Belgium, but bragged in Islamic State propaganda of his ability to move back and forth between Europe and Syria undetected."
---Associated Press, November 18, 2015
French Authorities Confirm the Death of Abdelhabid Abaaoud, the Purported Mastermind Behind the Terrorist Attacks in Paris
November 19, 2015 (Thursday)
Above: Washington Post website screen image, Thursday morning, U.S. central time, November 19, 2015
Above:
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Pew Research Center: The Muslim Population in Europe
Associated Press: French Authorities Confirm that Purported Terrorist Mastermind Abdelhabid Abaaoud is Dead
"The Belgian extremist suspected of masterminding the deadly attacks in Paris died a day ago along with his female cousin in a police raid on a suburban apartment building, French officials said Thursday, adding it was still not clear exactly how he died.
The body of Abdelhamid Abaaoud, 27, was found in the building targeted Wednesday in the chaotic, bloody raid in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis and was identified based on skin samples, the Paris prosecutor's office said Thursday.
Abaaoud ended up near Paris after reportedly being in Syria but officials have not said how he managed to travel across so many borders en route to the French capital. In addition, authorities have not detailed his exact whereabouts or actions during the deadly rampage that killed 129 people last week in Paris.
Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said France did not know before last week's deadly attacks that Abaaoud was in Europe, but said he was believed to be behind four of six attacks thwarted since spring by French authorities.
Three police officials have told The Associated Press that a woman who died in the police raid was Abaaoud's cousin. One said the woman, Hasna Aitboulahcen, is believed to have detonated a suicide vest Wednesday in the building after a brief conversation with police officers."
---Associated Press, November 19, 2015
GOP Presidential Candidate Donald Trump Calls for the Registration of U.S. Muslims
November 19, 2015 (Thursday)
Above: AP photo of GOP presidential candidate Donald J. Trump in Newton, Iowa, Thursday, November 19, 2015
Associated Press: Donald Trump Calls for the Registration of U.S. Muslims, November 19, 2015
Haaretz.com: American Xenophobia Unleashed in the Wake of Paris
New Republic: A Nation of Trumps?
Deadly Bombing at Shi'ite Mosque in Iraq
November 20, 2015 (Friday)
Above: Map of Iraq
Associated Press: Deadly Bombing at Shi'ite Mosque in Iraq, November 20, 2015
"Bomb attacks on a Shiite mosque and elsewhere in southern Baghdad killed at least 15 people Friday as a top religious official urged unity among Iraqis in the fight against the Islamic State group.
The deadliest of the attacks targeted the mosque in the Iraqi capital's Nahiyet al-Rasheed neighborhood. A roadside bomb blast went off on the street outside the mosque just as worshippers were finishing Friday prayers, police said. Within minutes, a suicide bomber inside the mosque detonated an explosives vest. Ten people were killed and 28 were wounded in that coordinated attack, according to police.
Two separate roadside bombs exploded in commercial areas of southeast Baghdad, killing five people and wounding nine, security officials said.
Hospital officials confirmed the casualties. Like the police, they spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to talk to the media.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks, but near daily attacks in Baghdad are often claimed by the Islamic State group.
In the Shiite holy city of Karbala, the representative of Iraq's most influential Shite cleric called for unity in the fight against IS and condemned recent attacks abroad claimed by the group."
---Associated Press, November 20, 2015
Hostage Situation in the West African Nation of Mali
November 20, 2015 (Friday)
Above: Map of Mali (source: LonelyPlanet.com), a nation in western Africa; AP map of Mali (posted November 20, 2015) with the city of Bamako (site of the Radisson Hotel hostage situation) labeled
Associated Press: Coverage of the Hostage Situation in Mali, November 20, 2015
New York Times: Coverage of the Deadly Hostage Situation in Mali, November 20, 2015
"Gunmen stormed a Radisson Blu hotel on Friday morning in Bamako, the capital of the West African nation of Mali, seizing scores of hostages and leaving bodies strewn across parts of the building."
---New York Times, November 20, 2015
Donald Trump Campaigns in Birmingham, Alabama
November 21, 2015 (Saturday)
Washington Post: Donald Trump in Birmingham, Alabama, November 21, 2015
AL.com: Donald Trump Campaigns in Birmingham, Alabama, November 21, 2015
"For a 'silent majority,' the thousands of people inside the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex sure weren't quiet during a Donald Trump campaign rally Saturday, where the Republican front-runner bashed his competition, the media and President Barack Obama in a wide-ranging, stream of consciousness speech.
Trump, who entered to 'Sweet Home Alabama,' assailed the media for a 'false' story about him wanting databases on Muslims in the United States, but said he was in favor of keeping a close eye on followers of Islam who come into the country in the wake of last week's Paris attacks.
'If you don't mind, I want to surveil. I want surveillance of these people that are coming in -- the Trojan horse. I want to know who the hell they are,' Trump said to cheers. 'I want surveillance if we have to... I want surveillance of certain mosques.'
The Republican front-runner also turned on the media when photographers focused their lenses and video cameras on Black Lives Matter protesters who disrupted the rally instead of Trump.
'They can turn the cameras. These are just lying people. They're very dishonest people,' he said. 'It's disgusting. Be ashamed of yourselves fellas, be ashamed of yourselves.'
Birmingham Police said the protesters were asked to leave the venue for causing a 'minor disturbance,' but there were no other incidents related to the rally.
The crowd, which filled up about half of the BJCC's North Exhibition Hall and were given signs that read 'the silent majority stands with Trump,' began chanting 'build that wall' as Trump hit on his signature issue – immigration."
---AL.com, November 21, 2015
Washington Post: Donald Trump's Take on the Protester at his Birmingham Rally
"Donald Trump on Sunday defended erroneous claims he made about U.S. Muslims cheering the 9/11 attacks and said a black protester at a weekend rally here was 'so obnoxious and loud' that 'maybe he should have been roughed up' by white audience members.
The Birmingham rally marks the latest example of Trump’s refusal to back down amid outcries over his often-incendiary racial and religious rhetoric — and comes as polls show him once again with a clear lead over the rest of the candidates seeking the Republican Party’s presidential nomination.
Saturday’s racially charged altercation occurred in Birmingham, famous in the 1960s as a center of the civil rights struggle. The thousands who attended Trump’s rally were nearly all white in a city with a black majority.
Mercutio Southall Jr. — a well-known local activist who has been repeatedly arrested while protesting what he says is unfair treatment of blacks — interrupted Trump’s rally and could be heard shouting, 'Black lives matter!' A fight broke out, prompting Trump to briefly halt his remarks and demand the removal of Southall."
---Washington Post, November 22, 2015
Salon: Donald Trump Off the Rails
Democrat John Bel Edwards Elected Governor of Louisiana
November 21, 2015 (Saturday)
Above: AP photo of Governor-elect John Bel Edwards (D-Louisiana) hugging his wife Donna in the wake of defeating U.S. Senator David Vitter (R-Louisiana) in the 2015 Louisiana gubernatorial election, November 21, 2015
Associated Press: Democrat John Bel Edwards Elected Governor of Louisiana, Defeating GOP U.S. Senator David Vitter
"Democrat John Bel Edwards won the runoff election for Louisiana governor Saturday, defeating the once-heavy favorite, Republican David Vitter, and handing the Democrats their first statewide victory since 2008.
Edwards, a state lawmaker, will take over the office from term-limited Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal in January.
Voters' rejection of Vitter was a stunning turn of events for the U.S. senator, who has been a political powerhouse in the state for years and started his campaign nearly two years ago as the race's front-runner. Edwards' win offered a rare pick-up of a governor's seat for Democrats in the conservative Deep South.
After his loss, Vitter immediately announced that he wouldn't seek re-election to the U.S. Senate next year, creating a new competition for what had been a safe GOP seat.
Edwards painted the race as a referendum on Vitter's character and integrity and suggested the U.S. senator didn't measure up in such a competition. Edwards focused on his West Point degree and military resume, and he pledged a bipartisan leadership style."
---Associated Press, November 22, 2015
2015 NFL Season: Carolina Panthers Remain Undefeated (10 Wins, 0 Losses) by Defeating the Washington Redskins
November 22, 2015 (Sunday)
ESPN: Carolina Panthers 44, Washington Redskins 16
White Christians No Longer a Majority of Adults in the United States
November 23, 2015 (Monday)
National Journal's Ron Brownstein: White Christians No Longer Majority of U.S. Adults
"Long the dominant group in American religious life, White Christians have fallen below a majority of the U.S. population—and they are moving to the right politically as they recede.
The result is that, like race and age, religious affiliation marks a sharpening point of distinction between Republicans and Democrats, previously unpublished results from the Pew Research Center’s massive Religious Landscape survey show.
As the nation relentlessly diversifies, both in its racial composition and religious preferences, White Christians now represent just 46 percent of American adults, according to Pew data provided in response to a request from Next America. That’s down from a 55 percent majority as recently as 2007, and much higher figures through most of U.S. history.
Yet even as White Christians shrink in their overall numbers, they still account for nearly seven-in-10 Americans who identify with, or lean toward, the Republican Party, the Pew study found. White Christians, in fact, represent as large a share of the Republican coalition today as they did of American society overall in 1984, when Ronald Reagan won reelection. A clear majority of all White Christians across the United States now identify as Republican, Pew found."
---Ronald Brownstein, National Journal, November 23, 2015
Turkey Shoots Down Russian Military Jet
November 24, 2015 (Tuesday)
Above: Map of Turkey (Source: LonelyPlanet.com)
Above: AP photo of a Russian military jet aflame and crashing after being hit by Turkish military weaponry, Tuesday, November 24, 2015
Above: HuffingtonPost.com screen image, late Tuesday morning, U.S. central time, November 24, 2015
Above: President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan; President of Russia Vladimir Putin; President of Syria Bashar al-Assad
Associated Press: Turkey Shoots Down Russian Military Jet, November 24, 2015
New York Times: Turkey Shoots Down Russian Military Jet, November 24, 2015
November 24, 2015 (Tuesday)
November 25, 2015 (Wednesday)
Socialist Head of State in Portugal
November 26, 2015 (Thursday)
Above: Undated photo of Antonio Costa, who became Prime Minister of Portugal on November 26, 2015
New York Times: Socialist Head of State in Portugal, November 26, 2015
Above: Excerpt from New York Times online article, November 26, 2015
2015 NFL Season: Carolina Panthers Remain Undefeated (11 Wins, 0 Losses) by Defeating the Dallas Cowboys, 33 to 14
November 26, 2015 (Thursday)
ESPN: Carolina Panthers 33, Dallas Cowboys 14
FiveThirtyEight.com: The 2015 Carolina Panthers are the Weakest 11-0 Team Ever
Deadly Mass Shooting at Planned Parenthood Facility in Colorado Springs, Colorado
November 27, 2015 (Friday)
Above:
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New York Times: Coverage of the Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood Shootings
Associated Press: Coverage of the November 27, 2015 Mass Shooting at Planned Parenthood Facility in Colorado Springs, Colorado
Deadly Rocket Attack in Mali
November 28, 2015 (Saturday)
Above: Map of Mali
Reuters: Deadly Rocket Attack in Mali, November 28, 2015
"Unknown attackers fired rockets at a United Nations peacekeeping base in northern Mali on Saturday, killing three people inside, the U.N. said, in the latest sign that the West African country's Islamist insurgency is intensifying.
French troops and the 10,000-strong U.N. force, known as MINUSMA, are struggling to stabilize the former French colony. Islamist militants attacked a hotel in the capital Bamako on Nov. 20 and killed 20 people, in their bloodiest attack yet in the country's south.
Desert-based jihadists regularly launch rockets and missiles at northern U.N. bases, especially around full moon when the lighter nights make it easier to target the camps, although it is rare for the missiles to land inside the walls."
---Reuters, November 28, 2015
2015 NFL Season: The Denver Broncos Defeated the Previously Undefeated New England Patriots
November 29, 2015 (Sunday)
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) Approves China's Renminbi as a Reserve Currency
November 30, 2015 (Monday)
New York Times; China's Currency Approved by IMF as Major Reserve Currency, November 30, 2015
Brookings.edu: The Renminbi and the Yuan, Explained
December 2015